The controversial ranchera 'Mátalas' changes its lyrics: it removes “the dagger” and “the gun” but keeps the “murderer of women”

Alejandro Fernández, performer of 'Mátalas', at the Viña del Mar Festival, on February 21. Adriana Thomasa (EFE)

The performance of Alejandro Fernández at the Viña del Mar Festival on February 22 again attracted controversy over the classic rancher "Mátalas" for "making an apology for femicides", as condemned by the former Chilean Minister of Social Development, Karla Rubilar, and the Chilean Network against Violence.

20 years after its release, the composer of the song, Manuel Eduardo Toscano (Catemaco, Veracruz, 70 years old), assures in a telephone interview with EL PAÍS that he will change one of the most controversial verses of the song.

But not all.

The author affirms that the new version eliminates "the strong" but maintains the controversial metaphor between death and love.

“It will be officially recorded.

I think it's time to do it by putting the new part.

I have also sent it to Alejandro [Fernández] ”, he tells this newspaper.

The controversy that accompanies the song is concentrated above all in one of its verses:

.

"It was the composer's fault, my servant, but I already have a new verse," he confesses, then prepares his voice, intones and begins to sing the variation in one of his verses: If you want to enjoy his pleasures, try to please him in

.

The author insists that with the change he takes away "the strength", killing with a knife and a gun.

But he defends that the word “kill them” —with which he tries to metaphorize the term “love”— should continue in the song.

“Composers always walk like a radar, looking for the word and the phrase.

One day I heard someone say 'I'm going to kill you with a squeeze'.

I thought that something had to be done that spoke of killing in the sense of sweetness, killing with caresses, and that's where the theme began to arise ”, he explains.

The Gender Studies researcher at UNAM Amneris Chaparro affirms that the variation of the verse “does not alter the meaning of the song”.

"A singer is not going to cause a person to become a femicide, but what he does with these types of songs is to normalize the relationship of inequality and violence," she says.

Chaparro assures that a song that in appearance could be innocuous or funny hides meanings that may have another trend.

“This also shows the hegemonic and traditional masculine role that is represented from the exercise of violence against women and against other men, the character of domination”, she explains.

The composer Manuel Eduardo Toscano, poses for a portrait with Vicente Fernández, father of Alejandro Fernández.RR.SS.

It is not the first controversy that surrounds

.

The violence that has shaken Ciudad Juárez since the late 1990s —the song premiered in 2003— and which resulted in dozens of disappearances and femicides caused it to be prohibited in some areas of the State of Chihuahua, recalls the composer.

“The politician shields himself by believing that by removing the song there will no longer be disappearances of women.

I wish that were the case, it would be a miracle, ”he defends.

In 2020, the actress Angélica Aragón asked that the song be stopped singing, since she considered that it normalized violence.

So, Toscano sent a new version to El Potrillo, in which he changed "kill them" to "love them."

“I knew that I was going to lose strength.

The word is kill them, what had to be changed was the verse, ”he defends.

Public complaints for possible apologies for femicide have not exclusively affected the classic rancher.

In 2017, Café Tacuba, one of the most popular bands in Mexico, stopped playing

in its live shows.

In that 1984 hit, one of her verses could be interpreted from that perspective: "That's why now I'll have to give you a couple of bullets

it hurts."

Toscano considers that the people have been in charge of turning the song into a classic, and believes that they have accepted it and now know it as it is.

“My songs have always had a bit of controversy, it's part of the job.

They also criticized me a lot for the one of

that Paquita la del barrio recorded, ”he explains again, laughing.

He wrote the song for Vicente Fernández.

He recorded himself singing it, but that first version never came to light.

“There it will continue, saved.

Father's love made him give it to her son.

That is how it came into the hands of Alejandro Fernández”.

The composer still remembers the conversations with Vicente Fernández in a palenque in Coatzacoalcos, in Veracruz.

There, the singer told him that his son had already recorded it, and he remembers with a laugh what happened just a few months later, when the song became a hit.

"

, if I had known it was going to be a big hit, I wouldn't give it to Alejandro's bastard," he says.

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